Mearns kids clued up on compost

Thirteen pupils visited a recycling plant on a fact-finding mission to see for themselves what happens to our waste. It was a reward for their hard work on the recycling front at the Newton Mearns school.

Mearns Primary takes its eco credentials seriously and its most recent push has been to reduce the school’s food waste and drive up recycling.

It’s been a big success and key to it – and the school’s other green successes – has been Mearns’s recycling monitors.

Part of their work has been to make sure lunchtime waste goes into the right bins.

And, to show them how important that work is, the monitors were given a tour of the GP Plantscape food and garden waste recycling plant in Blantyre, where East Renfrewshire’s brown bin waste is processed.

The pupils got the chance to see the waste at all the different stages – from raw material straight out of the back of East Renfrewshire Council’s bin lorries, through the composting process, to the end product, a nutrient-rich compost.

It was a big hit with the monitors. Arshvir Jillich said: “I have learned so much more about recycling now. It was probably the best trip I’ve ever been on.”

Fellow pupil Kara Buckley said: “I liked seeing the vessels and thought it was extremely interesting that it was heat that killed the bad bugs.”

Grace Barclay added: “I liked learning how the men turned food and garden waste into compost. I was amazed by the huge machinery.”